Checkmate (Or, a Field of Black and White)
by CyanTortoise
Summary: The fate of Valoran is held in the hands of the few.


The Raven

Jericho Swain, Grand General of Noxus, regarded the chess board with tightly pursed lips. His eyes studied the formation of his opponent's pieces, noting weaknesses, areas of exploitation, avenues of attack. He was still for several moments, the chamber quiet save for the rasping of stone on steel. After a handful of minutes had passed, Swain's hand found the King, moving the ivory model forward a square. Satisfied with this action, Swain spoke to the hulking figure opposite him, axe in hand.

"Must you do that here?" His eyes did not leave the board. "If your goal has been to utterly destroy my concentration, then I suppose congratulations are in order." The man across from the General merely grunted in response, reaching a hand forward in the span of mere seconds and moving his Rook into place.

"Check." The sound continued.

Sighing in annoyance, Swain lifted his eyes from the game and stared at the black haired man before him. Although wearing a simple tunic in place of his usual plate and mail, Darius was still a giant of a man, thick cords of iron-hard muscle rippling beneath the thin fabric. His infamous axe lay across his knees, its edge catching the faint light of Swain's lounge. Still, Darius insisted on sharpening it even here, his whetstone making slow, rhythmic motions across the blade of the great weapon. Seeming to sense his master's gaze, the soldier's eyes rose to meet Swain's. Noting that the General had not yet looked away, Darius grimaced, yet placed the axe at his side all the same. Swain nodded, and returned his focus to the match. However, instead of returning to silence, Jericho instead found himself speaking, as his hand found one of his Pawns.

"Tell me, Commander, how you rose to power." Swain had heard the official reports, but he needed Darius to understand his train of thought. He moved his piece to intercept the Rook's current path of travel.

Darius, ever the conversationalist, merely shrugged his massive soldiers. "I killed those that were in my way. I earned my rank, and my place in Noxus." His Bishop toppled it's rival. "Check."

Studying his opponent's move, Swain smiled despite himself. "So," he began. "Let us make this a comparison to our game here. You were, let us say, a pawn." Swain's finger gestured to the aforementioned piece. "Simple. Obedient. A soldier in every aspect. And yet…you were not satisfied. Why is that, I wonder?" Of course, Swain already knew the answer, but it would serve to drive his intentions home. As Darius formulated his answer, Jericho took the moment to eliminate the threatening Bishop.

A soft curse escaped Darius's lips. Swain glanced at the man, his brow furrowed in concentration. Swain allowed a few seconds to tick away, before clearing his throat politely. Darius grunted, and said simply, "They were weak. I was strong." He shifted uncomfortably. "Forgive me, Grand General, but is there a reason you wish to discuss my past deeds? As far as I am aware, you've already been briefed on my file, sir."

_He catches on quickly,_ Swain thought to himself. He struggled with how much he wished to reveal to the commander. Finally, after Darius had moved his Queen in to Jericho's territory, he spoke.

"I am trying to explain to you, in as simple a way as I know how, why Noxus is failing."

His words were greeted by silence. Though he could feel the soldier's coal-black eyes driving holes into his skull, Swain did not meet Darius's gaze until he had once again advanced his Pawn forward another square. The commander was half way out of his seat, his hand edging dangerously toward his wickedly sharp axe, a look equal parts incredulity and absolute loathing plastered on his face. Swain could hear air hissing through the man's clenched teeth, and noted with some caution that Darius's eyes had grown hard. The duo's eyes remained locked, until the larger man upended the chess board and rose to meet his superior, his face red with fury.

"How _dare_ you mock my nation in front of me," he growled, all semblance of rank abolished. His hands were clenched and twitching, the cords in his neck strained.

_And to think, I had assumed this would go smoothly. _Nevertheless, Swain faced with the threat without batting an eyelash. Instead, he turned away from the raging man, and said quietly, "I will allow that transgression to go unpunished. You will not forget yourself again Commander, or you may find yourself sharing the same fate as so many of your victims. Sit."

Darius stood defiantly for almost a full minute, before sinking back into the wooden, straight backed chair. Although Swain could still sense the cold fury radiating from his companion, he chose to press on with his previous lesson.

"Now, as I said before, Noxus is failing. It is weak. It is corrupt. We are quickly becoming inferior to-"

Darius cut him off. "I will not have it said that we are submitting to those Demacian dogs." He spat, drawing a silent groan from Swain. _That may stain the carpet._ Freljordian bear fur was hard to come by, and incredibly expensive. A shame. Darius's complaints drew him back from his musings. "Pray tell, Grand General, what are _you_ doing to prevent our imagined downfall? All I can hear is the bitter complaints of an old ma-"

Darius shrieked as massive talons tore through the floor and ripped into his flesh. Three gigantic claws dug in to his torso, drawing rivers of blood from puncture wounds the size of a human fist. Swain massaged his temples as Darius's screams attempted to drown out his lament toward the gargantuan holes in his rug. Feeling a headache beginning to form inside his skull, Swain turned toward the pathetic figure of the pinned man.

"Oh, be _silent,_" Swain said contemptuously, hobbling to the commander with his ebony cane. When Darius refused to extinguish his loud display, Jericho delivered a fierce backhand across the soldier's face. That, blessedly, ended the shouting, though the man still cursed with an incredibly wide vocabulary, albeit much quieter. Choosing to ignore Darius's coarse use of language, Swain instead spoke over him.

"I was not referring to Demacia, Commander, but to the _League._" Not bothering to wait for a response, the General forged on. "We believe ourselves and our country to be mighty, as does Demacia, and Piltover, and the rest of the lot. We play at war, yet who is it who dictates when and where these battles will be fought? The League. Who has the power to level entire cities to the ground? The League. And who is it that divvies out land and power to the select few like we're trained dogs begging for a treat? He left Darius to solve that one. He continued.

"Make no mistake, Demacia is not our enemy, despite what your officers would have you believe. Yes, they are incredibly self righteous and arrogant fools, but are we any different? No, we have sunk just as low, all of us. One by one, the League has sapped us of our strength and our pride. You may be asking yourself, 'Why do we not just move against the League? Why not return to the old ways?' I do not blame you, for you are a soldier, and your are trained to think such idiotic thoughts. Noxus is not prepared to go to war against the Summoners, not against such _power_."

Swain turned to regard the commander, before realizing that the man was still impaled, and losing blood at a steady rate. _Oh yes, I quite forgot._ Whistling, he summoned Beatrice, the raven flocking to his outstretched hand from one of the many dark recesses of the chamber. Murmuring into the bird's ear, he launched her from an open window. Mere moments passed before one of the healers in service to the High Command arrived, nothing on her person save Beatrice, perched atop her shoulder. Gesturing to the bleeding man, Swain released the talons holding him upright and let the commander fall into the surprisingly steady arms of the healer.

Swain turned away, letting the familiar weight of Beatrice settle on his shoulder. He cooed to the six-eyed raven, feeding her a kernel of corn before sending her on her way. The raven proceeded to soar out of the window yet again, no doubt to hunt for more nourishing sustenance.

"It's done, my lord." The girl spoke quickly and fluidly, a trace of an accent decorating her words. Swain regarded the woman. She was tall, with a back straight as a rod, her gaze lowered to the ground. Snow white hair fell across her burgundy eyes, so deep and dark as to seem almost red. Though the rest of the woman's features remained hidden from Swain's view, he knew that her face was distinctly blank, devoid of emotion. He was reminded, once again, of another woman, one who had sparked his curiosity and set his plan into action. From the look on Darius's face, he thought the same, yet was either smart enough, or in too much pain to speak.

"Look at me." The woman followed the command at once, her head snapping to a perfect ninety-degree angle. _His features are clearer, in this light._ _The nose, the mouth, even the eyes…the same shape and color, to be certain._ "From where do you come?" he decided to ask. Hopefully Darius was paying more attention than he had previously.

"The Twilight Land, my lord." Swain nodded, though he knew of this already.

"Your name, child?"

"Elena, my lord." She seemed slightly put off by the question, but her face remained calm. It was her eyes that betrayed her emotions. _That, at least, is different. You could never tell what he was thinking. His eyes were the abyss. _

"Do you not possess a surname, girl?" Darius's eyes were narrowed now, his lips drawn down in a slight frown. Swain, for his part, reflected the woman's blank features.

She hesitated for a moment, before saying, with some trepidation, "My mother was a peasant, my lord. She owned no name."

"And your father?" he pressed.

By now, the girl's mask was breaking, and she struggled to remain looking at the General. "I…never knew my father. He was highborn, my lord. He could not bother with me."

"A bastard then." He shared a glance with Darius, his eyes full of implications. "You may go now girl, thank you."

The girl gave a stiff bow, before walking from the room as fast as etiquette would permit. Darius now turned to Swain fully, massaging the spots where his wounds had been mere moments ago. "Who was she?" he asked.

"She is a fifth degree healer in service here to the High Command. She is trained in the use of the healing magics by the Mage Kvasse, at the Institute for Gifted Persons here in Noxus. Her mother was a baseborn girl living in the Twilight Lands, who took to bed a man of noble birth, coincidentally from the Twilight Lands as well, formerly a High Command member." Swain rattled off the list from memory. He had wrote her file himself.

Darius stood, and approached his elder. "Sir, there hasn't been a Twilight Land member since…" His eyes grew wide with understanding.

Swain nodded. "General Marcus Du Coteau, yes. Before he became the Grand General before myself, he was smitten with a peasant girl from a near by village in his home province of the Twilight Lands. You will recall, I hope, that the Twilight Lands are left suspended in continual darkness. The hair of the natives there are often lacking pigment, due to lack of any healthy amount of sunlight. As for the red eyes, well…" He shrugged. "It was a distinct characteristic of the late General." He waited for Darius to grasp the hanging thread there.

He did not have to wait long. For all his brutality, the commander did have a certain cunning about him. "If the red eyes were unique to General Marcus…" He paused, contemplating his response. "What of his two other, natural daughters?"

"Can you remember his wife? She was black of hair, with piercing blue eyes. Beautiful and deadly. Yet, these rare traits of hers were able to overpower General Du Cotaeu's even rarer genetics. You see, only natives from the Twilight Lands can produce such white hair together. And it seems, at least from what I have discovered, that his red eyes were only transferable through two people. The peasant girl…" Swain smiled slightly. _Now for the masterstroke._ "And Lady Swain, my dear daughter. You see, commander, General Marcus Du Coteau did not have two natural daughters, but three."

At this, Darius came to the final realization. "The Exile…."

Swain picked up his trailing thought. "General Du Coteau is Riven's father, as I am her grandfather, by matrimony. You will not remember this, nor do many, but there was a time where Marcus loved _my_ daughter. She was of noble birth, beautiful, a fitting match. They lived in happiness for only a few months, however. The territory of Qyth, at the time a large, prosperous semi-nation, wished to join the Noxian fold. There only price was that Marcus Du Coteau wed one of the royal family's daughters. For the sake of the country he loved so much, the General was forced to leave his wife, for the embrace of another. I bore him no ill will. I am a political man, and I saw the wisdom in his actions. I arranged the marriage myself." Swain paused. The conversation threatened to probe deeper into his private thoughts. Still, he felt it necessary to continue.

" A month later, my daughter gave birth to his child, a white haired, red-eyed reminder of the love she had lost. She could not bear the pain seeing her child caused her, and left the girl at the doorstep of one of the many military academies. I took her in, and gave the child to one of my most trusted commanders, who was assuming instructor duty at the time. A month after that, and my daughter lay dead at her own hand." He swallowed hard, but concealed his emotions beneath a calm façade. It would not do for Darius to think of him as weak. He did not want to have to kill the prodigal commander.

"I made sure that the child survived, however. She was enrolled into the academy at the age of seven, and quickly became one of the school's brightest students. I ensured that she was entered into only the best training camp, and after her graduation, I was the one who presented her with her sword. She was perfect. She embodied the Noxian ideals with a strength and conviction I have not seen since General Marcus himself. She was his daughter, not Katarina, not Cassiopeia. She was supposed to be the leader that would continue the Du Coteau legacy. Yet, as soon as Marcus was found to be missing, the High Command moved against Riven, ordering the attempt on her life. I was wroth, though I could not express my anger, lest they target me next. I could only silently urge my granddaughter on, as she struggled to maintain the Noxian values that sustained her."

Darius did not fail to pick up on the details. "If the High Command attempted to kill the Exile, then what of General Du Coteau?"

"Dead. Official reports name him 'Missing in Action,' though I know this to be false. I was, after all, his father-in-law." Swain took a grim satisfaction from seeing the look of shock cross the commander's face. Before he could interrupt, Swain continued, saying,

"He confided in me, the night before his death, that he planned to discuss matters with a certain group of Summoners, at an institute to the west. He believed that the current war was the result of a conspiracy, planned from the start by a select few. The specifics I can not mention, for he did not explain such to me, though I know, in these old bones of mine, that the Summoners were responsible. This group would later come to form the League as we know it today, confining our petty battles and consolidating our power to one single entity, and confirming Marcus's beliefs. I mean to carry out his goals."

Darius sat, visibly puzzled. He opened his mouth to speak, then closed it, seemingly frustrated. His face drew a dazed, somber expression, as he sifted through the information thrown at him. "And what are these goals, sir?" he asked finally.

"To destroy the League," Swain stated as casually as if they were discussing the weather. "He planned to put an end to the war between our two nations. Yet all the League has done has been to suck us in to many and more conflicts, no doubt aided by officials from all nations, in order to entertain the masses. To _control_ us. However, mere resistance will not serve. Once, perhaps, we could have rejected and fought these sorcerers. Now, they remain the strongest force in Valoran, and the greatest threat. Only a unified nation could hope to rally others to it's cause, and for that it needs a great leader."

Darius shrugged. "Noxus has one, sir."

"Do not try and flatter me, Commander. It does not become you. No, I am one in a sea of fools, and even if I were to be the sole ruler of this nation, I fear I would not be strong enough to keep it from shattering. Only the strong survive, Commander, remember that."

He nodded. "Always." He hesitated, then said, "You mean to sit the Exile on the High Command."

"No." Swain's eyes narrowed dangerously. "I plan to seat her on a _throne,_ Commander. And for that, I need you."

Darius took a knee, grabbing his axe and laying it at the General's feet. The previous altercation was gone in an instant. He was about to receive an order. "Command me."

Swain smiled despite himself. His gamble had paid off. "Before my granddaughter can sit as the head of Noxus, she must be rid of rivals. Even Marcus had his enemies, that is obvious." He stopped, contemplating his next words. _There is no turning back._ "I, Jericho Swain, Grand General of Noxus and Head of the High Command, order you, Darius, the Hand of Noxus, to eliminate the members of the High Command. You are to handpick fifty men, summon the council, and dispose of them in any manner you see fit. Should any beg for mercy, send them to your brother for an execution befitting their status. When you are finished, mount their heads on the walls, and report back to me."

Immediately, Darius rose, his eyes hardening once again. "At once, sir." With that, he strode from the chamber, with no other words.

Swain sighed in satisfaction. Though Darius was fiercely stubborn when it came to the pride of his nation, he took a perverse delight in removing those he deemed too weak to rule. Picking up the pieces of his chess board, Swain ran through the remainder of his plan, while toying with the ivory Pawn he had been moving across the board. Soon, screams began to echo through the Great Hall, reaching Swain's ears even through the immense iron doors. He did not pity them. Pity was for the weak.

Riven…could she truly unite Noxus once again? Swain told himself it was the truth, but a man of his prestige did not reach his position without being naturally suspicious. However, doubts would do him no good at the time. He brushed the thoughts away, returning to the chess board. He rearranged the board from memory, recalling were every piece had been the moment before Darius's outburst. Placing his Pawn on the field, he moved it once again a single square forward. A genuine laugh burst forth from his lips suddenly, to mix with the screams of mercy from the dying. He swept away his Pawn, replacing it with the white Queen.

"Checkmate."


End file.
